Chapter Three
Tessa watched the doorway for several seconds after Matvei Belov disappeared through it, half expecting him to come back.
He didn't.
The training room door remained closed, and the locker room around her continued as though the conversation hadn't happened.
Players pulled on shirts and tied shoes.
Trainers moved between stalls gathering laundry.
Somewhere near the center of the room, a television reporter laughed at something one of the defensemen had said.
Nobody seemed particularly concerned that Tessa's first interview as an NHL beat reporter had ended with the subject walking away from her.
That should have made her feel better.
It didn't.
She let out a slow breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and slipped the recorder back into her jacket pocket. The screen showed less than a minute of audio, most of it likely consisting of her asking increasingly desperate questions and Belov refusing to answer them.
Well.
There went her lead.
Tessa looked down at the page in her notebook. The list of questions she'd spent much of the previous night carefully researching now seemed painfully optimistic.
Biggest offseason focus?
Working with childhood goalie coach?
Confidence heading into camp?
She had prepared several possible follow-ups beneath each one, anticipating short answers or the standard clichés players relied on during training camp. She had not prepared for the possibility that Belov would openly accuse her of already having the story she wanted.
For a moment, she considered scrapping the idea altogether.
Training camp offered no shortage of easy alternatives.
There was a rookie winger from Finland, Joona Salonen, trying to make the roster after dominating the European leagues.
Viktor Sundberg, the Convoy's Swedish center and veteran captain, was returning from an injury that had ended his previous season in March.
A free-agent defenseman was settling into Halifax after spending his entire career in California.
Any one of them would probably stand there and talk to her for five minutes.
Belov clearly wasn't interested.
Tessa glanced toward the hallway again, still irritated by how quickly he'd dismissed her.
She had approached him politely. She hadn't blamed him for the previous season or framed the interview around failure.
She'd asked what he worked on during the summer, one of the safest questions anyone could ask on the first day of camp.
Somehow, he had treated it like an ambush.
She could choose another story. Her editor would understand. Nobody expected every idea to survive the first interview, and there was no shame in adjusting when a player refused to participate.
But as Tessa stared at the abandoned questions in her notebook, her embarrassment began to recede enough for instinct to take over.
She wasn't writing a personality profile.
She was writing about why the Convoy believed Matvei Belov could rebound from the worst season of his career.
The story depended on more than his willingness to explain himself.
Coaches had watched him throughout the summer.
Teammates had seen him since he returned to Halifax.
The people around him could tell her what looked different, even if Belov refused to.
He didn't have to tell the entire story himself.
Other people could help her tell it.
The Convoy's goaltending coach, Pat McLean, was still standing near Belov's stall, fitting an iPad and a stack of practice sheets into a black duffel bag.
McLean had spent six seasons with Halifax after a long career coaching in junior hockey and the minor leagues.
Tessa had seen him interviewed often enough to know that he usually gave thoughtful answers, even if they weren't especially colorful.
She slipped her notebook back beneath her arm and crossed the room before he could leave.
“Coach?”
McLean looked up from the bag. “Yeah?”
“I'm Tessa Brantley, with the Tribune.”
His expression softened into a polite smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“I'm working on a story about Belov's offseason.”
McLean's smile widened just enough that Tessa wondered how much of the previous exchange he had overheard.
“Good luck.”
“So I've been told.”
He laughed and pulled the zipper closed across the top of the duffel. “What would you like to know?”
The question was simple, but it immediately eased some of the tension still sitting between Tessa's shoulders. McLean wasn't treating her like an inconvenience. He wasn't waiting for her to prove she belonged. He was simply giving her the opportunity to ask.
“What was different about this summer?”
McLean rested one hand on top of the bag and considered the question before answering.
“I think the biggest thing was that he got back to enjoying hockey.”
Tessa's pen paused above the page.
“Enjoying it?”
“It's easy to forget this is a job after you've done it for a long time,” McLean said. “Especially when things aren't going well. Last season wore on him. He'd tell you that.”
That caught her attention.
Or at least, Tessa thought, he probably would have told her that if he had answered a single question.
McLean either didn't notice her reaction or chose not to acknowledge it.
“He went home,” he continued. “Worked with the same goalie coach he's had since he was a teenager. Small rink. Small group. No cameras, no noise. Just hockey. I think he needed that.”
The detail about the small rink was better than anything she had expected to get from Belov in a standard locker-room scrum.
“Did you notice a difference when he came back?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“In what way?”
“His feet.” McLean chuckled. “I know that sounds strange.”
“A little.”
“For a goalie, it isn't. His feet are quicker, but they're also quieter. More controlled.” McLean gestured toward the empty space in front of Belov's stall, as though he could recreate the movements there.
“Last year he got outside himself sometimes. Started chasing saves instead of trusting his positioning and letting the play come to him.”
“Was that connected to the knee injury?”
“Partly. When you don't fully trust your body, you start trying to compensate for it. Sometimes that creates two or three other problems.”
McLean had become more animated now, tracing imaginary movements with one hand as he explained.
Tessa followed closely, grateful for years spent covering goaltenders in junior hockey.
She understood enough of the technical language to know where to ask for clarification without forcing him to simplify everything.
“So the summer was about rebuilding those habits?”
“Exactly. Getting him back to where he's reading instead of reacting. I think he's found those instincts again.”
It was better than hope. It was something concrete. An identifiable problem from the previous season and a reason the organization believed it had been corrected.
“Anything else?” she asked.
McLean thought for a moment, his expression shifting away from the technical analysis.
“He's smiling more.”
The answer was so simple that Tessa nearly missed its significance.
She thought of Belov laughing when she first entered the room. The sound had seemed out of place only because nothing she had read about him suggested he was capable of it.
Before she could ask McLean to elaborate, one of the assistant coaches called his name from across the room.
McLean glanced over his shoulder, then nodded apologetically toward Tessa. “Sorry.”
“No, you've been a huge help. Thank you.”
He lifted the duffel from the floor and headed toward the hallway, leaving Tessa beside Belov's empty stall with several pages of notes she hadn't expected to have five minutes earlier.
She read through them once.
Enjoying hockey again.
Small rink. No cameras. No noise.
Quicker, quieter feet.
Trusting his positioning.
Smiling more.
She still didn't have a usable quote from Belov.
That bothered her. A story about an athlete's attempt to rebound should include the athlete's own voice, even if the answer amounted to nothing more than a few safe sentences about working hard and taking things one day at a time.
But she had something else now.
A reason to believe the story was real.
Across the room, Viktor Sundberg had finished dressing and was seated beneath his stall, lacing a pair of black athletic shoes.
The Convoy captain wore a gray team sweatshirt and dark athletic shorts, his damp blond hair combed back from his face.
At thirty-four, he had spent nearly his entire career in Halifax and had played with Belov since the Russian goaltender arrived in Canada.
If anyone could explain the difference McLean had noticed, it was Sundberg.
Tessa walked over before she could talk herself out of approaching another veteran.
“Can I steal a minute?”
Sundberg looked up and smiled easily. “Sure.”
“My name is Tessa. I'm with the Tribune.”
“I know.”
The answer surprised her.
“You do?”
“You took Frank's job.”
Tessa wasn't sure whether to interpret that as recognition or warning. Sundberg seemed to notice.
“I mean that in a good way,” he added. “Frank said you were smart.”
She hadn't known Frank had discussed her with players. The idea made her feel both encouraged and strangely exposed.
“Well,” she said, “now I have to hope I don't prove him wrong.”
Sundberg laughed and leaned back against the wooden stall. “What do you need?”
“I'm working on a story about Belly's offseason.”
A grin spread across his face immediately.
“So he didn't say much.”
“Not exactly.”
That drew another laugh, warmer than McLean's had been and completely free of surprise.
“Don't worry. It's not you.”
That was the second time she'd heard some version of that in less than five minutes.
“What have you noticed from him since everyone got back?”
Sundberg folded his arms and took a moment to think.
“Honestly?”
She nodded.
“He's himself again.”
“What does that mean?”